Xander's Creed
by exsailor1999
Summary: Xander the Assassin. An Assassin in SunnyD, the monsters better start running. First four chapters have been reworded. New material will begin in chapter 5.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Buffy and all related material is owned by Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Desmond Miles and all related material are owned by Ubisoft. Just to be on the safe side if you recognize anything in this fic other than the plot than it is owned by somebody else. This is a not for profit fanfic. Please don't sue, I'm broke.

 **Pairings:** Xander/Faith

 **Rating:** I'm gonna go with M just in case. There will be gratuitous violence and bad language. Maybe some sexual situation but nothing explicit.

 **AN:** I'm swapping two episodes from Season 2. Lizard Boy (S02E05) and Go Fish (S02E20), so that the swim team episode took place before the Halloween episode. The only other alteration to the world's timeline is I'm making Assassin's Creed the video games came out for the original Playstation which I think was available back in '98.

 **AN:** Dawn isn't the Key, she is the biological sister of Buffy and the daughter of Joyce and Hank Summers. In cannon she is 2 years younger than Buffy which means that she will be a Freshman at the start of this fic.

 **AN:** Fair warning there will be character deaths and bashing of several major characters, specifically Buffy, Willow, Angel, and Spike. No, I won't be killing all of them…I don't think. We'll see. If you like any of these characters you might want to go read a different fic.

 **Chapter 1**

"I need coffee," Xander commented as he made his way blearily into the high school library where he and his friends usually met up to discuss whatever crisis was occurring that week. Pausing at the foot of the long table that took up the center of the room, he briefly debated whether to plop down in his favorite chair and be blinded but with a comfortable backside or grab a different seat and be uncomfortable but with the ability to see. After a brief pause the lanky teen came to a decision and sat with his back facing the windows where the god-awful daylight was cheerfully beaming in. After a huge yawn, he continued. "I'm gonna take a stand here and say that any time before noon on a Saturday is not of the good…Somebody remind me why I had to be here at 8 o'clock in the morning?"

"Because last night was major hellmouthy badness?" Buffy Summers suggested, as she looked at him with a perky blonde earnestness that only she could achieve. Fighting back a yawn of her own as she shrugged. "If I ever see that creep again I'm gonna introduce him to my foot. Although at least the French test on Monday is gonna be a breeze. Maybe I should thank him before I beat him up?" The Slayer shot a questioning look at Willow Rosenberg as her red headed friend came through the library's door and made her way to join the other teens at the table.

"Sounds fair to me Buffy." The red headed hacker/budding witch said as she took a seat next to her blonde friend. Looking over at her childhood best friend across the table she continued, "What are we talking about?"

"Why we're here at oh my god in the morning on a Saturday." Her yellow crayon buddy replied. "Speaking of, congrats on sleeping in Wills. I didn't know you had it in you."

"Yeah, there's just something about coming back from the dead that really takes it out of you. I've never slept so well."

"Morning everybody. Good morning English." Jenny Calendar said with a smile as she breezed in, her long skirt swirling around ankles. The attractive techno-pagan had just sat down next to Xander when the library office door opened.

"Yes well…Good morning." Rupert Giles responded as he came out of his office. Straightening his sport coat in a subconscious effort to impress when he noticed the beautiful computer teacher sitting with the group that Xander had dubbed the 'Scoobies', he moved to stand at the foot of the long table that dominated the ground level of his domain.

"I see that everyone made it home safely after the events of last evening." He commented as he met the gaze of everyone at the table. "Now that the circumstances of last night have been resolved are there any causes for concern that any of you have noticed? Any lasting effects for instance." The high school librarian and official Watcher for the Slayer looked around the table again, paying special attention to Buffy and Xander as he tried to ascertain if there would be any long term ramifications for Ethan Rayne chaos spell from the night before.

As usual, it was the Slayer herself who spoke up first, exhibiting the typical impatience he had come to anticipate from her. "I haven't noticed any Giles. Well except like I said, I'm down with the French now. I also have an annoying urge to do needlework and crochet. Ooh and the harpsichord. I can now play the harpsichord. Do harpsichords still exist?"

"Yes fascinating." Giles commented, choosing not to respond to the harpsichord comment of his charge.

"Ah phooey! I didn't get to keep anything. I wish I hadn't dressed up as a ghost. I always miss out on the good stuff." Willow pouted.

"Incidentally Willow, if you hadn't been a ghost, I wouldn't have known what was going on and last night might have turned out far more tragically. As the young red head visibly perked up at his statement, the librarian turned his attention to the dark haired young man on his right as he asked. "Xander, can I presume that you kept some vestiges of your possessor as well?"

"I had a quiet night at home. I take it something mystical happened?" Interrupted Jenny, as she unconsciously tucked a strand of her dark hair out of her face and behind her ear. The young Gypsy continued. "Somebody want to fill me in?"

"A man named Ethan Rayne opened a costume shop called originally enough Ethan's here in town recently." The middle aged librarian and her prospective boyfriend answered. "He cast a spell last night with the aid of the Roman god Janus to transform everyone who purchased a costume from him into that costume."

"My God!" Jenny exclaimed. "That's insane!"

"Quite." Was the Englishman's reply. Before turning back to Xander and continuing. "Xander, do you still have any remnants from your possessor? And who exactly were you dressed as?"

"I think so G-man. I mean I can remember the training but I doubt I have his skills. I probably remember some languages too." Xander replied.

"Who did you go as Xand?" Buffy asked. "All you'd say was that he was a character from a video game." Looking over at Willow she continued. "Did you recognize him?"

"Yes Xander, who was your possessor last night and what skills and languages are you referring to? And would you please refrain from that infernal nickname." Giles quickly followed before the shy teen could reply.

"I was dressed as Desmond Miles." Xander answered Buffy.

"Eeep!" Willow exclaimed. "Xanderhewasanassassin! Whywouldyoudressupashim?"

Although he was concentrating on the three people in front of him, Xander didn't fail to notice when his computer teacher's face whipped around to stare at him in shock at his answer.

After taking a moment to process the Willowspeak, Giles looked back at the lanky young teen and asked. "Your Halloween costume was an assassin?"

"I dressed up as a character from a video game series called Assassin's Creed. He was Jesse's favorite character Willow. Or have you forgotten?" Xander harshly asked. Referring to their childhood best friend/musketeer who was turned into a vampire shortly after Buffy came to town the previous school year. With his only remaining childhood friend visibly chastened he continued. "I figured this would be a good way to remember him. Besides it's not like I knew your old college buddy was gonna turn everybody in town into their costumes as a prank Giles!"

"Yes quite. Well as I'm unfamiliar with the games and character in question, perhaps someone would like to fill me in?" The Englishman enquired.

"What he said." Buffy chimed in. "I've never been into video games. I've heard of the game, my ex-boyfriend Pike back in L.A. was into it, but I don't know anything about it."

"Pike? Really? What is it with you and guys with one name Buff?" Xander asked incredulously as he tried to deflect everyone's attention from the subject.

"Shut up Xand. We're talking about you here." She shot right back and stuck out her tongue to taunt him.

"Right well, Desmond Miles was a hereditary member of the Assassin Order, Giles. They were known by various names throughout history, for example in the Roman Empire they were the Liberalis Circulum and during the Crusades they were the Hashshashin. They were the sworn enemies of the Templars. In the game, the Knights Templar wanted to save humanity from itself by imposing their own order on the people, creating a unified world order with them at the top, and since individual opinions lead to disagreement, and disagreement was contrary to order…well then the people would just have to not be allowed their own opinions. Basically they wanted to strip the free will from everyone not a member of the Templars. The Assassins on the other hand fought for individuality and the freedom to allow for growth and progress. So whenever a person or group began to gain too much power, become too despotic, the Brotherhood would step in and remove the leadership. This allowed for the progress of new ideas and a reason for the growth of a culture or civilization."

"I see." Giles commented. Taking off his glasses he began to polish them vigorously with a handkerchief taken from his jacket pocket as he continued. "And this Desmond Miles, he was an assassin in this…Brotherhood?"

Taking on a pensive look, Xander answered. "Not really. He was raised to be an Assassin but when he was a teen he ran away. He didn't want to be a killer. He also never bought into the whole Templar propaganda. Plus he was never very good at it anyway. He spent his days as a bartender."

No one but Xander noticed the incredulous look on Ms. Calendar's face as he explained the character of his possessor.

"But I thought he was the main character of the game?" Willow jumped in.

"Yeah, why dress as a guy that isn't any good in a fight?" Buffy asked.

Shooting a glance to Ms. Calendar as she shifted in her chair, as if about to comment Xander continued. "He was the main character, but in the game he was kidnapped by the Templars and inserted into a machine called the animus. What the machine did was make Desmond relive the genetic memories of his ancestors. For the first game it was a Syrian Assassin during the Third Crusade. In the game you played as him not Desmond."

"I see. So you don't have the skills of the Brotherhood then?" Asked Giles.

Turning his head slightly to face back towards the others, he kept his computer teacher in view as Xander replied. "Desmond only had basic assassin training, mostly stealth and firearms. But like I said, he ran away at 16 and never finished his training. And even if I did have clear memories of the full Assassin training regimen, it wouldn't matter since I don't have the muscle memory or conditioning to use any of it. Mostly I just got some language skills. I'm fluent in Spanish and French now. At least, I think I am. I'm also a pretty awesome bartender…but that's about it."

"Very well then, I will expect your French grade to improve accordingly Xander." Giles commented. "Do any of you know of any others that were altered by their costumes?"

"Cordelia was dressed as some kind of seductress. I'm not really what she turned into, but I saw her buying her costume when we were at Ethan's. She was complaining about how Party Town had sold her costume and she ended up having to slum it at a trashy little start up of a store." Buffy commented. "I don't think we ran into her last night, but she was supposed to go to some party at the mayor's so she was probably safe enough last night."

"I don't think anybody who transformed knows anything about the nightlife so we're probably safe that everybody'll just repress and continue on with their lives. Well except for Cordelia, and we can discuss her possession on Monday when she comes back to school." Xander said as the meeting began to wind down.

"Excellent. In that case please everyone keep an eye out for any after effects and come to me if there are any problems. For now I suggest that we try to put this experience behind us and continue on." Giles said before continuing. "Buffy since you are already here why don't we get your workout done now and that will give you the rest of the day to yourself…well, until you patrol tonight."

"I'm gonna go with…but I don't wanna!" The blonde former cheerleader whined, before continuing. "But I suppose having the rest of the day is bribe enough to get this stuff knocked out."

"Excellent. I'll just head into my office and grab my pads and we'll get started." Her Watcher replied as he moved towards the door situated behind Xander and Ms. Calendar.

"Cool, there's some stuff on the 'net I want to check out. I'll just hang here while you beat up Giles and then we can go grab some lunch." Willow said to her best female friend. "Xan, you up for hangin with me while we wait for Buffy?"

"Nah, I gotta meet up with Uncle Rory and take care of some stuff. Call me later?" Xander asked as he shot a significant glance at his computer teacher while standing up.

"Rupert, I've got some things to take care of as well." Jenny said to her fellow adult before continuing. "Maybe we can meet up this evening and talk?"

"I would like that." Her paramour replied as he walked out of his office minus the sport coat and with the addition of several heavy duty protective pads covering his torso, head, and hands.

Xander and Jenny didn't look at each other until after they'd cleared the library doors and walked down the hallway several yards. "Alright Xander, what did you leave out exactly." The young teacher asked her student.

The cheerful expression that she'd grown accustomed to seeing on her young students face fell away like a mask as his eyes hardened. While taking on a look of deep thought, Xander paused before replying. "O.K., before I answer that I need you to answer a question for me and I need you to promise that you won't lie or try to evade. This is REALLY important Ms. Calendar."

As her pretty face took on a curious expression she responded as they turned down another hallway. "Alright, shoot."

"Are you a member of the Gypsy tribe that cursed Angel?" He asked as he shot her a pointed look.

Stopping abruptly in the middle of the hall she exclaimed. "How did you know that?"

"Dammit!" He cursed.

The young computer expert and member of a notorious Romani clan listened in amazement as her young student continued cursing in at least three languages as they continued down the new hallway before continuing.

"Come on this is going to take awhile." He said as he led the way towards the computer science room before continuing.

"I know because Desmond knew. He was a fan of a TV Show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer." He answered before continuing. "Remember, the video games take place in 2012 and in the late '90s through to '03 there was a TV show about us in his reality. Buffy, Willow, Giles, you, me, and Angel among others, we were all in it. My best guess is that he lived in an alternate universe where we're a TV show to them and they're a video game to us."

"I was really hoping it was wrong because what they went through was most definitely not of the good. But if who you are is accurate that means that most of the stuff I remember from that show is also probably accurate, and life is going to be of the major suck for the next couple of years." Xander said glumly as his teacher stared at him like he was nuts.

"But…but!" She sputtered.

"And to answer your question I have an eidetic recollection of Desmond's life along with all of his ancestors who he'd accessed through the Animus. Including all of skills, knowledge, experience, and training that any of them had. I remember living all of their lives as if they were my own. So I have the memories from birth to death of Desmond Miles, Altaïr ibn-La'Ahad's, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, and Ratonhnhaké:ton. I lied about that on the off chance that Desmond's memories were accurate. We're gonna need the surprise factor."

Taking several seconds to compose her thoughts, the Romani then asked the most pertinent question in her mind, "Why?"

"The most time sensitive reason is because when Angelus returns he won't see me coming."

His reply shocked her senseless again. Feeling light headed the beautiful teacher put her head in her hands and leaned against some wall lockers for a moment before turning to fully face her student. "Tell me everything."

Opening the door to her classroom, Xander let her enter first as he began. "When Abstergo Industries kept Desmond a prisoner in between animus sessions he had to have something to do, so he watched TV. To try and keep him content, Lucy the undercover Assassin working there, was authorized to bring in copies of all the episodes for his favorite shows so that he could watch them whenever he wanted. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin off Angel were the ones he watched the most but there was also the Dresden Files, Charmed, the Vampire Diaries and another show called Supernatural among others."

Catching an inquiring look from his teacher he commented, "Desmond had a thing for a genre called urban fantasy. And since he was kept from being able to do literally anything else, he pretty much memorized all the episodes for those shows."

"I guess, I've heard of Charmed but not the others." She said.

"Yeah, they won't air for another couple of years, if they even get made in this reality. Anyway, when I gained his memories I also gained his encyclopedic knowledge of those shows. He was there for a year with nothing else to watch or do so he ended up memorizing all of them. His memory of the first season of Buffy perfectly matched what I remember happening last year. So far this year seems to be the same, except for the swim team incident happening before Halloween instead of in the spring. And me dressing up as him, in the episode he watched the Xander character dressed in army fatigues and spent the night calling himself Private Harris." He paused and looked her in the eye as an obvious internal debate took place. With a look of resolve on his normally cheerful face he continued in a quiet, even voice. "But the important part for you is that Angel loses his soul on Buffy's 17th birthday and goes on a rampage. He kills you when he finds out you are working on a way to curse him with a soul again."

Staggering as the young man informed her of her death. Janna of the Kalderash clan of the Romani felt like she was going to throw up. "How did the curse break?"

"The curse had an escape clause as all curses do. And it was crafted in the 19th century so they thought they'd come up with the perfect way to prevent the clause from triggering. If the demon achieves a moment of perfect happiness the soul is lost and Angelus comes out to play. Well on her 17th birthday Buffy decided to get her cherry popped with a demon ridden corpse and voila. Moment of perfect happiness achieved. Nobody back in the day ever thought that a girl would willing fall in love with let alone have sex with a dead guy. I guess they'd never heard of necrophiliacs before."

"I think I'm gonna be sick." She said as she flopped into the chair at her desk.

He grabbed a seat in the front row as he continued. "Yeah, I know how you feel. I'm supposed to spend the next 5 years basically being the servant/Renfield of the group before getting my eye gouged out by a psychotic priest. Willow gets addicted to magic, goes insane and tries to end the world. Angel gets his soul back after what he did to you and about 40 random people here in town before getting to go off and be a Champion of the Powers that Be. He ends up working for an evil law firm in L.A. Buffy…well let's just say that she becomes arrogant and reckless. Giles never gets over you and pretty much just goes along with whatever Buffy wants. It's a whole lotta bad all the way around."

"So why are you telling me this?"

"Because thanks to that damn possession I know exactly what'll happen if I confide in any of them. I now have literally five of life times of experience in dealing with people and friendships. Looking at them objectively through the lens of my new experiences, I now know that neither Willow nor Buffy are very good friends. Buffy is a self-centered, narcissistic, and self-destructive little girl with powers that she claims to have never wanted but would never give up. She's also a 16 year old girl who has literally had a planet ton of crap land on her and is barely dealing. She's in desperate need of psychiatric counseling but good luck finding a counselor that could handle her issues and not just automatically assume she's insane. If I tell Buffy she'll just assume that what's happened to me is evil, both because I don't really have a great track record with magic and because she couldn't handle the competition. She'd just demand that Giles and you get rid of it just like with the Hyena possession last year, which granted needed to be gotten rid of since I couldn't control it. But as far as she's concerned I'm ONLY human and no mere human has any business getting involved in her fight. In her mind I am not allowed to be involved in the slayage except as backup. If she found out I've got skills to match hers…well she'd see me as a threat and it wouldn't end well. I can't talk with Giles because he'll tell Buffy or he'll just try to block or suppress the memories on his own out of guilt for what he and Ethan did 20 years ago. As for Willow…don't get me started on her."

"Why? What about Willow?"

"Well having known many childhood friends from several different time periods means that I now filter all of my Xander memories through the lens of those experiences as I said. And looking back on our lives together leads me to the conclusion that she was only friends with Jesse and me because we paid attention to her and let her be the brains of the bunch. She reminds me of some of the scientists at Abstergo and other Templars throughout history. She wants to know…everything and never stops to think about the consequences of her actions. Buffy gives her the self confidence to believe that because she is more intelligent than most, she knows better and doesn't have to take other people into account. And to complicate matters, she thinks she's in love with me."

"And I take it you don't feel like that for her."

"Uhm…I'm gonna go with no. Before Halloween I saw her as my sister, my best friend, my yellow crayon buddy." Seeing her enquiring look, he continued. "Long story. Anyway, I've never had nor will I ever have romantic feelings for her. But she has apparently been going around thinking we're going to get married since she was a little girl. According to the show, she ends up being gay. I don't know if that will still happen or not but what I do know is that if things had gone as they did in that timeline, we would have had a brief affair next year that would have wrecked my love life since we were both cheating on our respective others and when we were found out Willow blamed everything on me. Buffy, Giles, my girlfriend, hell even her boyfriend agreed with her that it was my fault and I took advantage of her." He said finished in a bitter voice.

"I see." Janna responded in a subdued tone, as she was still preoccupied with the thought of her death at the hands of Angel.

"But see that little story arc never made sense to Desmond. You don't just suddenly decide completely out of left field that the girl you've considered your sister for your entire life is the girl you want to be with. And even if you did, Desmond didn't think that the Xander character in the show was the type to cheat. He gave me enough credit to assume that if I were unhappy with my girlfriend, I'd discuss it with her or at least tell her that I was being tempted in another direction and break it off cleanly rather than sneak around behind everyone's backs."

"True, you don't strike me as the type to be a weasel like that." She agreed.

"Thanks, Desmond always assumed she was doing an unconscious love spell on that Xander, since that was the type of stuff that happened to her pretty regularly once she got serious with the mojo. Plus, none of the Scoobies deals well with change. The fact that I'm not their goofy comedic relief sidekick anymore will cause them to go ballistic."

Scratching his head after taking a minute to calm down from his rant, Xander continued. "All of this is neither here nor there. Bottom line, I've got the skills and experience to make a real difference here on the Hellmouth but I'll be sidelined if the others find out about it. I figure between the two of us we can work to change what was going to be."

"What do you have in mind?"

"Well for starters, you need to come clean to the others about who you are and why you're in Sunnydale. Easiest way to prevent the curse being broken is to explain to Buffy and Angel why they need to break up. Plus, in the original timeline, you were outted after the curse was broken and Buff used that as an excuse to shift all the blame onto you rather than think that all of those people died because of her actions. If you do it now, Giles and the others will be upset but it won't come back to bite you later AND it will explain why those two being together is a bad idea."

"And before you say anything, if I were to try and convince either of them to break up with the other they'd both ignore me and accuse me of being jealous since I had a crush on her last year."

"I see. And I take it from the past tense that you don't have a crush on her anymore and you aren't jealous?" She asked archly with a raised eyebrow?

"Ah, no. Honestly other than her looks, she does nothing for me. The fact that she used me for a stripper pole to make Angel jealous when she came back at the end of the summer effectively killed any attraction I had to her. Her actions that night showed me that as far as she was concerned I wasn't a person, just an object to be used to make her feel better. She never even apologized for it. Before being possessed I never would have made a big deal out of it, because of the whole lack of self esteem issue, but now I can look back and say that it was messed up and I have no real desire to remain friends with someone who treats me that way. I get enough of that from my parents, I don't need it from my friends. Unfortunately she is the Slayer and we need her for now. Once I've advanced some of my other plans and I've got a viable way to fight against the nightlife without her, I'll walk away never look back."

The young teacher stared at the oldest teenager she would ever meet, trying to comprehend the massive changes he'd undergone since yesterday afternoon, and ashamed that she'd never discovered how bad his home life was. She was feeling oddly humble that he would entrust her with his deepest secrets and she silently vowed that she would do all that she could to help him.

"Alright, I'll try to come clean to Rupert tonight and he can figure out how we're going to fill the others in. What else?"

"Well, there are some discrepancies in the timeline that I need to figure out. For instance, in the original timeline, as said I went as a soldier not an Assassin. Cordy got her costume from Party Town and wasn't transformed." He said, silently deciding not to mention Dawn's extra-dimensional origin to anyone before he discussed it with her. "So I want to talk with her and find out what, if any, changes she's undergone. I also need to get the process started for me to be emancipated so I can get out of my so called parent's house. If we can prevent Angelus from rising and Drusilla from getting back to full power we should be golden till next year. There aren't any major big bads to worry about other than those two."

"Well in that case I better get home and contact my people and see if I can get a copy of the soul curse spell, just in case we end up needing it."

"Sounds good, good luck with Giles tonight, and I'll see you on Monday." The young man said as he made his way out of the classroom.

 **AN: I'm rewriting this story because it was the first fan fic I'd ever written and I went a little overboard with it. Most of characters were a little too munchkin and it was too hard keeping track of all of them. I've kept it mostly the same just tweaked it so that not all of the characters are going to be uber powerful.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

 **AN: For those that didn't read the author note at the end of the last chapter. I'm rewriting each chapter one by one.**

After leaving the school Xander jogged back to his house. He hadn't been totally dishonest with the others when he said he didn't retain the abilities of an Assassin. While Xander was in good shape for an American high school junior, before Halloween his body had had none of the conditioning necessary for most of the skills that his mind retained. But for some reason he'd kept some physical changes after the spell broke in addition to his memories. 'And wasn't that a surprise the first time I stripped down.' He laughingly thought to himself. Even though his body had been upgraded to Olympic gymnast levels as far musculature and lack of body fat were concerned, he was still struggling when it came to performing any of the tasks he remembered from his possession. While he did have more training and experience than any other assassin in history, the muscle memories of the various individuals were often conflicting or contradictory. Everyone performs even the same action in slightly different ways, and when you've got four different sets of programmed motions it tends to get rather confusing in a hurry. So it was going to take him time to train his new body to perform everything with the smooth unconscious perfection of a true master. Realizing this, Xander decided the first step was to push his body to its limits to see just what it was capable of…so he after exiting the school building he broke into a run.

One of the first things a member of the Brotherhood learns is a technique to divorce the mind from the body, allowing for the dismissal of pain and discomfort and permitting the body to perform actions faster and more smoothly, without thought. As he ran Xander used this technique to take his mind off what his body was doing and instead consider the meeting with his 'friends'.

As the dark haired teen ran down the sidewalk and away from the school, 'That went about as well as I could expect,' he thought to himself. 'Other than Janna, nobody twigged to the fact that I'm not the same Xander. Now I just need to keep that up while slowly changing Buffy, Willow, and Giles' attitudes on certain subjects. If I can do it, I might even be able to prevent all the bad crap that happened to them.'

Making sure to use his surrounding to practice his jumping around or over any obstacles he came across, the young man continued. 'As long as Murphy doesn't take an interest I should be able to prevent the return of Angelus, the torture of Giles, and the deaths of Janna and Kendra.' He mused, 'But that'll prevent the calling of Faith and she had a pretty crappy life before being chosen so I'll have to figure out some way to either get her called or get her access to a better 'normal' life. Plus taking out Kakistos so that her Watcher can live and then once I'm ready, sometime around the end of the summer, I'll deal with the mayor before his invulnerability kicks in. If everything goes right…no monster demon snake trying to eat us at graduation, and thus, no need to blow up the high school. And Harmony and the others that died at grad will get to live.'

Arriving back at his house Xander continued his musings as he made his way to the bathroom to grab a shower. 'I just hope that the timeline remains the same and if Dawn really is the Key that Glory doesn't show up until after graduation and we deal with Adam and those army assholes. If I remember right she can't use the key to leave this reality until a certain planetary alignment which isn't for a couple of years so hopefully we'll be safe. I wonder if the monks sent the key back in time and that's why she's already here or if Glory found them earlier than in the original timeline?'

After getting out of the shower, Xander dressed in a pair of jeans and a blue Captain America t-shirt he picked up the phone and called the Summers' house.

"Hello?" A perky female voice answered.

"Hey, Dawn patrol…how you doing this fine day of no school? You ok after last night?" He asked. What the Slayer didn't know was that her little sister had discovered the spookiness of Sunnydale pretty much as soon as they arrived. When Xander had found out she'd made him promise not to tell Buffy. He'd only agreed after making her promise to tell him of any and all experiences she had with the supernatural.

"Xander! Hey. I'm doin ok. Last night was a little heavy with the mental trauma, but I think I'll be alright."

"Good, good. Buffy talk to you yet? Giles wanted her to find out if you were possessed and if so were there any side effects?"

"No, not yet. She left before I got up and I haven't talked to her yet today. So what exactly happened last night? And as far as I know I wasn't possessed."

"An old college friend of Giles decided to play a prank. That dude that opened the new costume store cast a spell and transformed a bunch of us into the costumes we bought from him." Xander told her. "So you didn't turn into anybody? What happened to you last night? I know you were dressed as a witch..."

"Yeah but Mom and I didn't get our costumes at that shop. We got ours from Party Town. And I was with her at the gallery all night skeeving candy and hangin with the other kids with lame-oh parents that wouldn't let us go out. Wait, are you saying if I'd gotten my costume from Ethan's I'd have been turned into a witch?"

"Well…yeah?" He said in a questioning voice. "Why do you sound so disappointed?"

"Because I missed my chance to do magic and help Buffy and you guys out!"

"Dawn…that's a good thing. There's no telling what kind of person you'd have turned into or how bad the memories you'd have gained would have been."

"I guess…What about you? You were an Assassin from the video game right?" The pretty brunette teen asked.

"Yeah, and I have all of his memories in my head now. Including all of the people he'd killed. It is not something I'd have wanted my favorite little sister to go through." Xander replied. "I'm just glad you and your Mom got through everything okay without getting hurt."

"Wow. Yeah it was pretty freaky. But we just barricaded ourselves in the bathroom till the yelling stopped. I didn't sleep to good last night, but I think I'll be fine after awhile. You sure you'll be okay Xan?"

"Pretty much. It's kinda traumatic but I'm dealing. You let me know if you need help though okay?"

"Of course. So wait, if everybody that bought their costumes from that Ethan guy turned into their costumes, does that mean that Buffy was princess for the night?"

"Ha! Not quite. Your sister was an 18th century British lady and spent the night screaming DEMON at cars and electricity and pretty much everything else. Lady Useless damn near got your sister killed at least 3 times last night."

"Oh my god! She's okay though right?"

"Yeah, she remembers Lady Elizabeth's life but she's back to normal now."

"What about Willow?" She suddenly asked in a panic, terrified of the answer. "She was a ghost, does that mean she died?"

"Yes she did. But when the spell ended she jumped back into her body. She's fine now."

"Thank God."

"You know at the time if I'd been conscious I'd have been terrified. But looking back on it now, some of the crap that those two did last night was pretty hilarious."

"You'll have to tell me the full story sometime."

"Yeah. Well I'll let you get back to your day. I've got head over to my Uncle Rory's so I'll talk to you later."

"Cool. Bye Xander."

"Bye Dawnie." Xander said before hanging up the phone and heading off to his part time job.

For the last two summers Xander had been working for his uncle stripping abandoned and junked vehicles and selling the parts to various auto part stores around the state. Considering the number of people that were killed by 'gangs on PCP' or just flat out disappeared in Sunnydale…it was steady work and a good way to make money. The road trip fund wasn't gonna grow on its own after all. And since Xander got paid by the part not the hour and he was entirely a self taught mechanic, his road trip fund was slow going. Until that first Saturday morning after Halloween, when Xander discovered another plus to having been possessed by his costume. While the nightmares sucked, and the memories of killing hundreds of people across 4 different time periods definitely weren't his favorite, the possession did have several upsides. And thanks to Desmond, who worked as a mechanic for several years before falling into the bartending job, Xander's time at his Uncle Rory's junk yard was extremely productive. With an almost instinctive grasp of the best way to strip down a junker and clean up parts, his mind was free to concentrate on other things.

As he absently worked on cleaning a carburetor for an old charger Xander concentrated on training his mind to multitask. While his physical body performed the task of cleaning the various components, he was working on reaching the subconscious meditative state that would activate his eagle vision. However the task of forcing his mind to work in a way that it never had before was causing headaches, so he would take frequent breaks and whenever he took a break from that task he would plot out his training regimen. Between free running, knife throwing, sword and hand to hand practice he was going to be busy for the foreseeable future. 'That's going to cut into patrol time with Buffy and Willow.' He thought to himself. 'It's not a bad thing but, they might get suspicious if I just suddenly stop showing up for patrols. I'll have to let Buffy start winning arguments when she tries to stop me from goin with them.' The problem was that sword and hand to hand skills were best learned when used against a sparring partner. In time, he'd be able to afford going to one of the local self defense classes but for now he'd have to stick to the scripted movements and bag training.

As he continued to work Xander also considered how he was going to equip himself for the fights to come. He had the memories, experience and knowledge to be an expert swordsman and knife thrower and unarmed combatant but had neither access to either nor money to acquire them. Not to mention that the fighting style used by the various assassins all focused around stealth and devastating attacks against joints and nerve clusters. The name of the game for the Brotherhood was strike first, strike hard, and never be spotted. None of their training was designed for physically superior opponents without human weaknesses. He would have to train in a style of martial art designed to use an opponents' superior strength and speed against themselves.

His living situation was also going to be an issue. After careful consideration, he decided that he would use Desmond's computer skills to create some of the tech companies that he remembered coming into existence around this point in time. EBay would be relatively easy to create. Xander decided that between his knowledge of how that website was set up and Janna's computer skills it should be relatively easy to set up. "Then it would just be a matter of advertising and the money should just start rolling in." He mused aloud to himself as he finished the carburetor and moved on to the next part.

'Once I've got my own place then life will really start looking up. I'm gonna need to start recruiting as well.' Once the memories had been integrated into his psyche Xander had begun to really plan out his war against the darkness. What he'd quickly realized was that fighting the demonic was nothing like fighting the Templar Order. There was no central leader or leadership that he could take out. Instead the forces of evil were made up of many different and antagonistic factions, each fighting with each other and the forces of light. Xander alone could never hope to win against them. The failure that was the Slayer line had proven that. One girl alone in the world could fight a holding action but never achieve victory simply because she could never be in more than one place at a time. Since Xander's ultimate goal was to drive the demonic forces from Earth forever, he knew that he would need allies. And that meant recreating the Brotherhood. Thanks to his memories of the TV show he knew where he could recruit at least one other person. Jonothan Levinson was a gifted illusionary mage, although he didn't know it yet, and a good person. If Xander could recruit him soon, he could prevent the young man from being murdered by his friends.

He was inflating a tire that he'd just installed on a new rim when another thought struck him. "I wonder if getting ordained as a priest by one of those internet websites would let me create holy water?" He wondered aloud. Then he began to wonder if it would be possible to use a super soaker full of holy water to battle the undead. It probably wouldn't do much against any demons…but it should hurt a vamp pretty bad.

The rest of Xander's weekend was made up of working from dawn to almost dark at the scrap yard and conditioning runs to get himself used to free running. He spent most of his time at work either maintaining his meditative state that activates his eagle vision or plotting what to do in various combat scenarios. He also wrote out a list of everything Desmond's memories contained as far as future events that would have taken place in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel television show timelines. Well that and planning what the EBay website would be like, since acquiring an arsenal was going to be expensive and the sooner the website went live the faster the money would start rolling in. 'I'm definitely going to have talk to Janna on tomorrow.' He thought to himself during a lunch break on Sunday.

In fact the weekend was so exhausting for Xander that it was a relief to have to return to school on Monday. Not really thinking about it, once he'd finished his morning run and shower he grabbed a plain grey t-shirt and jeans and didn't bother to grab his normal baggy over shirt. Stopping in at the library, when he got to school Xander walked in and heard the voices of the only two faculty members he respected.

"It's a secret!" Ms. Calendar stated emphatically as she came out from behind the stacks in her customary long skirt and collared blouse and headed towards the library office.

"What kind of secret?" Her boyfriend asked, following closely on her heels.

"The kind that's secret. You know, where I don't actually tell you what it is. Come on Rupert, you're an educated man…you should know these things."

"Yes well, it's just I believe it's customary that when two people are going out on an evening that both participants have an idea of what they will be doing and where they will be going."

"Oh come on! Where's your sense of adventure?"

"I live on a Hellmouth Jenny, adventure is secondary to survival. Besides how will I know what to wear?"

"Do you even own anything else?" She asked after giving him a head to toe inspection. Although she wouldn't admit it to him yet, the tweed suit with spectacles looked good on him.

"W-well, not as such, no, um…"

Jana chuckled as she said, "Then you're just going to have to trust me aren't you?"

Seeing that they're flirting was winding down, Xander decided to cough to get their attention. "uh-hem" he fake coughed before saying. "Hey Giles, Miss-C, how was your weekend?"

Spinning around to search out the source of the cough, Giles spotted the lanky friend of his slayer and responded. "I had a fine weekend Xander, and yourself?"

"Oh just the usual. Worked for Uncle Rory and that was about it." The teen replied. "Listen, I was wondering if you had some books in some languages that aren't English or a demon language. I want to see what all languages I got from Halloween."

"Certainly, I can get some together for you and you'll be able to go over them after school?" The librarian asked.

"Sounds good G-man."

"Xander I've asked you repeatedly to stop calling me that infernal nickname. Now what will it take for you to stop?"

"I'm thinking the Apocalypse sounds about right. Yup, as soon as an Apocalypse actually succeeds I'll knock it off. I promise" Xander said in an earnest voice with his trademark goofy grin lighting up his face.

"Well I'll let you boys talk." The pretty computer expert said as she started walking towards the double doors that led out to the hallway. "Tomorrow night, at 7:00 right Rupert?"

"Yes." He replied just as Buffy came in from the hall and walked past Jenny.

"Actually Giles, I'm gonna roll. I'll be here after school. Morning Buff. Later Buff." The teen said as he followed the pretty Gypsy towards the doors.

"Morning Xand. Bye Xand."

As the duo exited the library together Xander spoke.

"So I talked to Dawn and she said that neither she nor her mom got their costumes from Ethan's so they just hid in a locked bathroom until everything calmed down. Apparently Mrs. Summers is in full on repress mode. I still haven't gotten a hold of Cordelia but I should be able to corner her after history."

"Good. Okay...and why are you telling me instead of Rupert?"

"Because I needed an excuse to talk to you. In order to get emancipated I need a source of income and a place to crash. The problem of course is that without money I can't get a place to live, and since I'm in school I can't really work enough to make a decent amount of money. So I was thinking, how would you like to become a billionaire?"

The beautiful brunette's head whipped and fanned her short hair out behind her as she stared at her student like he was an idiot. "A billionaire?" She asked incredulously.

"Well I figured I've got memories from 15 years in the future, it'd be stupid not to use it. There was a website that hasn't been created yet, I know since I looked over the weekend, and when its inventor started selling off stock in that particular company he became a billionaire pretty much overnight." The teen calmly explained before continuing. "I've got the idea, you've got the tech knowledge…say we split it 50/50?"

"What would I have to do?" She asked.

"Create a website and do the security for it. I'll create a business plan and you'll apply for the business loan. Use the money from the loan for advertising and we should be good to go."

"And just what kind of website is this going to be? I don't want anything to do with porn."

Laughing out loud, Xander reassured her. "It's not porn. Think of it like an internet based garage sale. A person goes to our site, posts a pic of something that he or she wants to sell, a brief description of it, and an estimated price of what they want for it. It's set up as an auction so that others can bid on the item. We set up a countdown clock for say 7 days. Other people go to the site, see something they want to buy, and bid. At the end of 7 days the person with the highest bid has already given their credit card information when they bid, we run the charge, which includes any taxes and shipping charges, the seller mails the buyer the item and after confirmation of receipt, we give it a week to make sure they aren't going to return the item and then we send the seller their money. We make our money by charging a set amount for every item they put up for bid over say 30 items in a month. We also collect from any companies that want to advertise on our site."

"Wow, that actually sounds like a good idea. It's gonna take a lot of server space."

"That's one of the reasons we're gonna need a business loan. Just figure out what you think we'll need in terms of hardware and let me know how much to ask for. Desmond was trying to get a loan to open his own bar when he was kidnapped so I know most of what we'll need for that stuff. But we're gonna have to put everything in your name since I'm a minor."

"Meet after school and discuss?" She asked as she glanced at her watch.

"Yeah." He said as they continued down the hall. "Did you talk to your clan? And from the conversation I just walked in on I'm assuming that you haven't filled G-man in yet?"

"No, I'm going to do that tomorrow night. I'm still working on getting permission." Seeing his incredulous look from the corner of her eye she continued. "I took a magically binding oath Xander. If I break my word to the clan it'll have bad consequences for me. The only reason I can discuss this with you is because you already know."

"I see. Well if the clan denies you…let me know and I'll fill him in. Then you can discuss it with him freely."

"Hopefully that won't be necessary. I should hear something back from them by tonight." She said as the homeroom bell rang.

"Yeah, I gotta go. See you then." The young man said as he ran off.

"Have fun" she said as she headed off to the computer lab.

 **AN: As always, constructive criticism is appreciated.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The day progressed like any other Monday for the most part. But instead of being bored by the teachers due lack of interest, now Xander was bored in class due to already knowing all of the material being covered. History was particularly painful for Xander. Buffy and Willow were passing notes back and forth behind him, since he was in the front row with Cordelia and a couple of others. Xander propped his head on his fist as he idly listened to the teacher quiz the students on the French king Louis XVI. Listening to the comments of a bunch of American teenagers as they talked about the life of the common people in France 200 years ago and why the French Revolution succeeded was so absurd it was actually kind of funny. Of course he had an unfair advantage since he remembered speaking with those who'd either fought in or fled from the French Revolution and listening to their firsthand accounts of what had happened and why.

Since he was basically ignoring the teacher anyway, Xander decided to practice his meditative exercises. The day before he'd actually managed to achieve the necessary state for a moment, giving him a chance for a quick scan of his surroundings before it faded. 'Hopefully I'll be able to hold it this time.' He thought to himself before he began to regulate his breathing. After a few minutes of concentration Xander actually achieved the hyper aware state that the Brotherhood had come to call eagle vision. Quickly glancing around the room he got a good look at everyone in the room before losing it. His head pounding from the unaccustomed thought process necessary to achieve the hyper awareness, Xander contemplated what he'd seen. Most of the people in the room, including the teacher were washed out and colorless…meaning that they were innocents and didn't have either information or aid to provide, but they weren't targets or enemies either. However three of the students in the room stood out. Willow shown with the blue of an ally streaked with a pulsing unhealthy shade of lime green that none of Xander's memories had ever seen before. Buffy was also the blue of an ally, but streaked with silver and black. While Cordelia shown as the blue of an ally but covered in little sparks of royal purple. The dark haired teen was drawn out of his musings by the voice of the teacher asking a question as she came up behind him.

"Well, it seems like Louis XVI was just sort of a weak king." One of the jocks commented.

"That's fair enough," the teacher replied as she reached the front of the class and turned to face them before continuing, "What other impressions did you guys get from the reading?"

"I just don't see why everyone's always picking on Marie Antoinette. She was such a sweet woman." The dulcet tones of Cordelia Chase said from the desk next to Xander's. The beautiful brunette continued as he turned his head to look at her. "I can so relate to her. She worked really hard to look that good, and people just don't seem to appreciate that kind of effort." She said as she looked around to make sure she was the focus of everyone's attention.

"And I know the peasants were all depressed…"

"I think you mean 'oppressed'." Xander chimed in.

"Whatever. They were cranky…So they're like, 'Let's lose some heads'. Ughh! Like that's fair. And, and Marie Antoinette cared about them so much. It wasn't like there was anything she could do though. She was a woman and an Austrian in France and it was the 1700's. It's not like she had any kind of political power, and women's lib didn't happen until 200 years later!" She ranted. "And don't even get me started on that whole 'let them eat cake crap'…she never said that! It was a line written by some French scholar guy before she even hit puberty."

As the resident popularity queen of Sunnydale High ranted, Xander was thinking to himself. 'Yup, she definitely kept the memories of whoever possessed her. She's talking about the French Queen as if she actually knew her. I wonder who she dressed as?'

"Um, that's a very interesting perspective. Would anyone else like to comment?" The teacher asked just as the bell rang.

After trying to catch Cordelia's attention and being pointedly ignored, Xander joined up with Buffy and Willow as they exited the classroom.

"I don't know. I don't thinks so. They seemed pretty friendly." Buffy said in response to whatever the last note Willow had passed her.

"Who's friendly?" Xander asked, hoping to catch up on what his two 'friends' had been discussing.

"No one." Buffy answered in a definitive voice.

"Angel and a girl." Willow chimed in at the same time.

"Willow, do we have to be in total share mode?" Buffy asked in exasperation.

Xander smiled goofily while the trio walked into the student lounge. As they made their way towards the couches he commented. "Hey, it's me. If Angel's doing somethin wrong, I wanna know. Cuz it gives me a happy."

"I'm glad someone has a happy." Buffy idly commented.

"Aw, you just need cheering up. And I know just the thing!" He exclaims as he performs a weird dance move. "Crazed dance party at the Bronze!"

As she collapsed down on to one of the sofas in the lounge with Willow sitting in the middle next to her, Buffy crossed her arms with a depressed look on her face and said. "I dunno."

"Very calm dance party at the Bronze?" Receiving a glum look from the blonde Chosen one he continued as plopped down next to Willow. "Moping at the Bronze it is."

"I'd suggest a box of Oreos dunked in apple juice, but maybe she's over that phase." A male voice commented from behind them.

Spinning around Buffy let out a squeal before lunging at the dark haired teen that Willow didn't recognize and Xander only recognized thanks to Desmond's memories.

"FORD!"

"Hey, Summers! How ya been?" He asked in a cheerful voice with a big grin on his face as the vertically challenged blonde attempted to crush his ribcage in a huge hug.

"Ford? What are you doing here?" Dawn asked as she walked into the lounge.

"Uh, matriculating Dawn." He answered as he weasels out of Buffy's hug and keeps hold of her hand.

"Huh?" Buffy asked intelligently.

"Dad got transferred. I'm finishing my senior year here."

"This is great!" Buffy said enthusiastically.

"I'm glad you think so." Ford commented. With everyone's eyes on the new guy, only Dawn noticed a strange look on Xander's face. As Buffy and Ford continued to banter back and forth Dawn shot Xander a questioning look. Seeing it, he mouthed later to her and turned his attention back to Buffy and her childhood friend.

"So I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that you're an old friend from L.A.?" Xander commented to the new teen in a mildly sarcastic and questioning tone.

"Oh! I'm sorry. Um, this is Ford!" Buffy said as she turned away from her childhood friend and back to her fellow Scoobies. "Uh, Billy Fordham, this is Xander and Willow."

As Ford moved to sit on the couch across from the trio, Buffy got up and joined him, while Dawn stole Buffy's previous seat.

Once everyone had finished playing musical chairs and gotten comfortable, Willow greeted the new guy. "Hey. Nice to meet you!" Willow chirped as Xander sent the him a wave.

With Buffy beginning to babble about the Divynls song 'I touch myself', Xander tuned her out while he tried to remember the specifics of the episode in Desmond's memories. 'Ok, so he's dying and wants to be turned into a vamp. But there was something else…uhm. Oh yeah, the ritual to get Drusilla back to full power. A vamp steals a book from Giles and he lets her get away.' He thought to himself.

When Buffy and Ford stand up Xander returned his attention to them in time to hear Buffy say, "I'll see you guys later in French, but first I want to take him to the office."

Smiling at both of them as they leave, Xander turns to Willow and Dawn just as Willow's face turns bright red.

"Oh, that's what that song is about?!"

When Xander and Dawn crack up at her question, Willow made an excuse and left.

"Ok, now what was with the look Xan?" Dawn asked.

The lanky teen made sure to look around so that they didn't have any eavesdroppers before he answered. After seeing that the coast was clear, Xander filled the pretty freshman in on Desmond's questionable taste in television entertainment.

"So we're a TV show?" She asked incredulously.

"He's a video game character…it could be worse. We could be a cartoon." He said with a goofy grin as he tried to get his friend to look on the bright side.

"Okay, and from the look you had earlier I'm guessing you recognized something from an episode."

"Yeah, Ford's dying of brain cancer. He wants to be turned into a vamp and figures offering up your sister will be enough of a bribe to get somebody to do it."

"What?!" She exclaimed.

"I'm sorry Dawnie…I know he was your friend."

"Actually I never liked him. He always wigged me out, I just never knew why." She said. "Buffy's gonna be ok though right?"

"She was in the episode, and since I know more than the Xander Harris on the show I'd say she's gonna be extra fine now." He replied with a smirk.

The slender teen slapped her crush on the shoulder, while she gave him the exasperated look all women give men when they say something cheesy.

"Anyways, there's something I need to talk to you about Dawnmeister." Xander said while looking directly into her blue eyes.

"Why do I have a bad feeling all of a sudden?"

"Cuz you're way more intuitive then most people give you credit for?"

"Xander!" She said in exasperation. "What's wrong?"

"Uhm, there's something else that I remember from the TV show that concerns you…but I'm not sure if it's accurate cuz the timeline seems to be a little screwy." He said in trepidation.

"Now you're making me nervous. Spit it out!"

"There is a possibility that you aren't who you think you are…only you are kinda…"

"…" Having no idea how to respond to that sentence she stared at her friend in confusion.

"Okay, in the show your character didn't show up until the 5th season…to give you an idea we're about a third of the way through the second right now. Dawn Summers was six years younger than Buffy and she wasn't her biological sister. She was a mystical energy field that was given human form by some monks to hide it from a Hellgod and sent to the slayer for protection."

"Wait…what!?"

"I'm not sure if this is true for you because there are some major differences in the timeline. The character of Dawn was created and inserted into the life of the Slayer to protect reality. The energy field was called the Key and if it was ever used reality would implode. Basically what I'm saying is you might want to get with Ms. Calendar after school and have her do a mojo check to see if you are who you think you are." He paused as he put his arm around her in comfort as she looked like she was about to cry. "Hey, no matter what you're my Dawnie and nothing is ever gonna change that. I'm just saying that it would be a good idea to know if we're gonna have a god coming after us."

After taking a few moments to compose herself Dawn realized he was right. "Okay Xan, I'll talk to her after school." She said as she stood up and got ready to head to her next class.

"K. Later." He walked her out of the lounge and waved as they headed in separate directions down the hall.

Finishing out the afternoon was just as boring as the morning had been. Fortunately Xander was able to get Cordelia alone just before last period and grill her on her Halloween possession. Just before last period, Xander spotted the cheerleader without her usual gaggle of minions for the first time all day. He called upon the stealth techniques of the Brotherhood to sneak up behind and then herd the gorgeous brunette into a nearby broom closet.

"HEY! What is your damage dweeb?" She exclaimed in surprise before she continued. "And just what do you think you're doing trapping me in here? If you think for even one second that just because you're not wearing one of those hideous shirts, and that you look good in a Speedo I'm go…"

"Cordy! Chill…I just wanted to ask you something and I doubt your rep could survive the hit if you were seen talking to me."

"Oh…well, thanks…" She said sheepishly. "Wait…I'm Cordelia Chase, my rep can survive anything."

"Wait you think I look good in a Speedo?" He asked with a cheeky grin.

"Shut up doofus! That is sooo not the point. Now hurry up and ask whatever it is so I can get out of here." She said in a forcibly calm tone.

"Okay…Were you possessed on Halloween? What do you remember from your possession? Did you keep any powers or memories? Who did you dress up as?" He fired off.

"Yes. Everything. I don't know, I've been too busy freaking out and trying to repress to experiment." She rattled off right back. She visibly steeled herself before answering the final question in a quiet voice. "Amanda Darieux."

"Who?" He asked. The name sounded familiar but he couldn't place where he'd heard it before.

"After Partytown sold my cat costume I wasn't going to spend daddy's hard earned money there let me tell you. So I went to this new store named Ethan's and that creepazoid owner sold me this Persian belly dancer costume. He said it was for a TV show that was canceled before the character was ever filmed. I was like whatever, cuz the costume made me look hot. It was all crimson and gold, flowing, and sexy under this to-die-for red shear robe…Nobody could take their eyes off me all night. Anyways, I ended up getting the memories of a 1,200 year old Immortal thief."

"Wow…so like from Highlander? That Amanda?"

"What's Highlander?"

"Crap…well it's a TV show that Jesse and I used to watch about an Immortal named Duncan MacLeod…"

"Oooh I remember him." She interrupted. "Amanda and he were off and on for over 300 years. That was one incredible hunk of salty goodness." Cordelia said in a dreamy voice.

"Right. Well Amanda was a part time character in that show before it was cancelled but she was only in like 3 episodes so I don't know much about her other than she was an incredible thief, very beautiful, and REALLY old. Hey wait, does this mean you're Immortal now?"

After giving him a furious look for taking a crack at her age, Cordy replied. "She was born in Normandy in the 9th century and travelled the world ever since. She was amazing." The beautiful teen defended. "As far as I know I'm either a pre-immortal or still mortal. I cut my leg shaving over the weekend and it didn't heal immediately."

"Huh…" He absently said as he was lost in thought.

"So what about you and the others?"

"Well, Willow was a ghost version of herself, so no new memories. Buffy went as an 18th century noblewoman to impress Angel. She spent the night screaming 'Demon' at everything and fainted a lot. I went as Desmond Miles, who before you ask was a member of the Hashshashin."

"Wait…the Hashshashin that worked to stop the Templars from taking over the world? Hid the Seeds of Knowledge and the pieces of Eden. THAT HASSHASHIN!?"

"So you've heard of them."

"Yeah…Amanda was a member in the 15th century. She ran a brothel in Florence using the name Paola and helped train a guy named Ezio after his dad was murdered. She also helped get the Apple of Eden from Rodrigo Borgia."

"Wow…that's just weird. I remember Paola but she didn't look anything like the actress that played Amanda on the Highlander TV show."

"Wait what do you mean you remember Paola?"

"The guy I dressed up as was kidnapped by Templars and put into a machine that made him relive the genetic memories of his ancestors. Desmond was a direct descendant of Ezio Auditore so I have all of Desmond's memories, along with everybody who's memories that machine made him relive…including Ezio's, and two others." He said uncomfortably, not wanting to admit just what all he'd retained. She may have been his girlfriend for a year on the show but it hadn't happened yet and he wasn't sure if he wanted it too. While he knew that in the original timeline she grew into a strong woman of deep conviction, right now she was a shallow cheerleader with delusions of actresshood. Even if she WAS a super hottie.

"So wait you're a killer now?" She asked incredulously.

"Are you? I mean you've got the memories of what…1,200 years worth of beheadings."

Just then the bell rang to indicate that they were running late to their last class of the day.

"Crap. Finish this after school?"

"Where?"

"Library. Might as well fill Giles in on some of it." Xander replied. "Just tell him you remember how to speak French fluently and maybe how to pick a lock or some historical facts or something but that other than that it's all fuzzy. I'll explain why later."

After giving him a confused look, Cordelia decided to humor the doofus. "Alright."

"I'll stop by. Now let me outta here dweeb before somebody catches us."

Slipping out of the broom closet after making sure the coast was clear; the two students went their separate ways. The final class of the day came to a close with Xander having managed to talk to both of his targets. 'So while not a perfect day, since it was incredibly boring it was also rather productive. And I can't believe I just used a 3 syllable word in a sentence. I've got to watch that, or Willow at least will catch on that something's up for sure. But since Ford is here I've got more proof that Desmond's memories of the show were accurate.' He mused to himself as the teen made his way to the library.

After walking in to the library, Xander walked over to Giles' office to pick up the materials they'd discussed that morning before heading into the stacks and grabbing some history books. As he went over the material, Cordelia joined Giles in his office to discuss what had happened to her over Halloween. Then she left.

After proving to himself that the memories of his Assassin possessor were mostly accurate in broad strokes as far as the timeline went, Xander got to work checking out his language skills. French, Spanish, Italian, and Mohwak were all part of his skill set now. Along with languages such as Latin, French, Farsi, Urdu, and German from the Middle Ages. Xander then did some research on what all would be necessary to become emancipated, as Desmond's emancipation took place in New York and California has different statutes. Having spent several hours after school researching all of this while Buffy worked out and Willow and Giles discussed demonic history, they broke apart to go home and get ready for the Bronze.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Several hours later Xander, Dawn, Buffy, and Willow were listening to the band as they played pool when Ford showed up at the local club. As Buffy, Willow, and Ford started talking Dawn and Xander wandered off to get fresh drinks and talk.

"So how'd the meeting with Ms. C go?"

"It was good." She said as she placed her order. "Ms. Calendar said that she should have the materials to cast an identification spell by Thursday. So I'll find out then if I'm human."

"Dawn…you ARE human. Whether you're the Key or not doesn't change that. Yeah, if you are it means that you weren't born like everybody else…but so what? Who wants to be a follower when you can be a leader? You never know…you could be trend setting a whole new way to have kids. No more pregnancies." He said with a laugh as he put an arm around her shoulders. "No matter what she finds, we'll all still love you. I promise." He added after telling the bartender his order.

"Then why tell me about it. Especially in the middle of the day like that. Janice spent the last 3 periods asking me what was wrong and I had no idea what to tell her."

"Sorry about that. I wanted to get it out of the way as soon as possible. Because in the original timeline your character didn't exist until about 3 years from now and a Hellgod named Glorificus showed up hot on her heels. So I'm not sure if with you here now she'll show up earlier or even at all." He said after picking up their drinks and starting back towards the others.

"Well we'll find out in a couple of days I guess." She said.

"Cool. In the mean time, don't worry about it. By the way, do you know who Jonothan Levinson is?"

"Yeah, he's the dark haired nerd in your year that's about as tall as Buffy right?"

Laughing he responded. "Yeah, that's him. Could you do me a favor and strike up a friendship with him? He's going to be important later on and he's super smart. Since I know you're having some issues with keeping your grades up being friends with him should kill two birds with one stone and all of that."

"Kay. I could definetly use some help with Algebra anyway."

They rejoined their friends just in time to hear Buffy say. "I'm gonna go get a drink." As she was walking away she lobbied a parting shot. "Ford TRY not to say anything."

As Xander started to rack up the balls on the pool table for a new game, Willow saw Ford as he looked towards Buffy and Angel as they were talking at the bar. "That's Angel." She commented.

"He's her 'special friend'." Dawn added.

"He's not in school is he?" Ford asked. "He looks older than her."

"You're not wrong." Xander snickered.

As Willow filled Ford in on the details of the Buffy/Angel romance, Xander began to slip into the hyper aware state that the Brotherhood called eagle vision. He did this for two reasons. One, he wanted to practice using the ability some more. And two, he wanted to see if he was able to pick out vampires from the crowd.

After a few moments, Xander achieved the correct meditative state, absently noting that he was achieving the hyper-focus faster each time. There was really no other way to describe it as, for a moment, a pulse that only Xander could see emanated from him sucking the color out of the world and leaving certain areas of the club, people, and items colorless and bland while others were glowing in a rainbow of colors. Being careful to maintain his concentration, the lanky teen did a slow scan of the room.

Dawn glowed with the royal blue of an ally, while Cordelia shown the same as from class earlier the blue of an ally covered in sparks of royal purple that he still wasn't sure about, from where she was sitting surrounded by her minions across the dance floor. Ford shown the red of an enemy and Willow was still a lime green tinged blue, Buffy was blue tinged with silver and black. Angel was the blue of an ally bordered in red and black. 'Lime green…purple…silver…black? None of my memories have ever seen any of those colors when looking at auras. I wonder what they mean?' Xander pondered. 'That'll make hunting a hell of a lot easier if one of those colors indicates demonic.'

As Xander concentrated on maintaining his hyper focus he mindlessly bantered with Willow, Ford and Dawn while they all took turns shooting pool. A short while later Buffy and Angel came over to rejoin the group and some tension laden words exchanged.

'And once again Buffy uses a poor sap to get a rise out of the corpse.' Xander mused. 'She has a lot of growing up to do.' When Buffy asks Ford to take a walk and then leaves with him Xander just shakes his head and goes back to ignoring Angel. As he racked the balls, Angel left unnoticed by Dawn or Willow.

The next day went the same as Monday. Between working out, discussing the new website with Janna and making sure he jumped through the appropriate hoops for the State of California, Xander didn't have a lot of time to hang with Buffy and Willow. Not that they noticed, between Buffy hanging with her old friend and avoiding Angel, and Willow researching Ford for Angel and avoiding Buffy they didn't have a lot of time to miss their Xander-shaped friend. It wasn't until Wednesday after school that Xander got a chance to talk to Jonothan. Dawn had slipped him a note to meet up in the computer lab after school. When he walked in, he found Ms. C, Dawn and Jonothan talking as they congregated around the teacher's desk.

"What's the what people?" He greeted everybody.

"Hey Xand." Dawn chirped. "Jono was possessed on Halloween too. He's willing to talk about it and I figured you and Ms. Calendar would want to hear this."

"Excellent." He said. "Cuz I've been wanting to talk to him for awhile now." He said before turning to the short young man. "Hey Jono…Long time no talk." Xander greeted him.

"Hey Xander. W-what's going on?" The shorter dark haired teen asked. "Dawn said that you and Ms. Calendar could explain what happened to me on Friday night."

"Well, it's like this buddy." Xander said before explaining the truth about reality and the nightlife of Sunnydale. He then went over who the Scoobies were, what they did, and the events of Halloween. "And that's about it…now who did you dress as and what do you remember from your possession?"

"That actually explains a lot. Not just about Halloween but about life in this town." The young genius said. "Well, I dressed up as an ancestor of mine. Samuel Colt. And I'd say I got all of his memories from birth to death and everything in between."

"Who's he?" Dawn asked.

"He was an inventor and business man a little over a hundred years ago. He was the owner of the Colt firearm company and according to his memories a demon hunter. He also designed and built the first revolver." The dark haired young man said in a relieved voice. "I thought I was going nuts before Xander told me demons were real."

"Another cool thing is that he invented and built a gun that could kill anything. Any demon, vampire or other supernatural creature…nothing short of God or the Devil could survive a shot from that gun." Xander chimed in. "Well, we're going to need two of those." Xander added with a laugh.

"Wow." Ms. Calendar said in an awestruck voice.

Smiling Jonothan replied. "It doesn't work that way Xander. Some very specific ingrediants are needed and a significant astrological event must be occurring during the gun's creation in order for it work correctly. When Colt built his version, Haley's comet was flying over head, and since that won't happen again for another 50 years…"

"Well that sucks."

"Wait…how'd you know about that gun Xander?" Jonothan asked.

"Because of who I was possessed by. He had a lot of time on his hands and watched a lot of TV. One of the shows he watched was about two brothers who were demon hunters. They used a gun called The Colt, which was invented by a demon hunting version of Samuel Colt to kill several high level Demons."

"Huh?" Jonothan asked looking thoroughly confused.

"Think of it like the Mirror 'Verse in Star Trek." Xander said. "You're possession is from a universe that was a TV show to my possessor. We're also a TV show to him. Here he's a video game character. And in about 10 years more than likely that show will be made here too."

As everyone looked at him as if he was crazy he continued. "Cordelia's possessor was a TV show character to us and as far as I know none of us or our possessors even rated a comic book in her universe."

"Who'd she go as?" Dawn asked, as she really admired Cordelia's fashion sense and take no prisoners attitude.

"She dressed as a belly dancer and for some reason that translated to having her possessed by Amanda from the Highlander TV show."

"Wow! Does that mean she's Immortal too?" Jonothan asked since he was a huge fan of the series.

"She says not, since she still heals as slow as a mortal." Xander replied. "So she's either still mortal or a pre-immortal."

"Yeah…so what were your costumes?" Jononthan asked the others.

"I got my costume from Party Town and didn't get possessed." Dawn replied.

"I stayed home and didn't dress up." Janna said.

"I went as Desmond Miles." Xander replied.

"From Assassin's Creed?" Jono asked.

"Yeah."

"Cool…so did you keep the memories of his ancestors?"

"Yup, everything about Desmond Miles, Altaïr ibn-La'Ahad, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, and Ratonhnhaké:ton is floating around up here somewhere. "

"That's kinda good and kinda bad. They killed A LOT of people. And you remember it all?"

"All of it. But if Colt really was a demon hunter I'm sure you've got some nasty memories floating around up there too."

"Yeah…some of the things those demons did weren't pretty."

"That's actually one of the things I wanted to discuss with you Xander…you too Jonothan and I'll get a hold of Cordelia tomorrow." Jana chimed in. "As far as I can tell, you three and Buffy are unique in that all of you kept the memories you gained from your costume and at a minimum both of you actually seem to want keep them fresh and use them versus repressing them like Buffy is so they won't fade away. All of you need to remember that a person is quite literally the sum total of their memories. Every new experience creates a memory which affects your personality, usually in ways you don't notice consciously. All of you have just gained massive amounts of new memories and that's going to affect you in various ways whether you like it or not." She paused as she looked both of the teens in the eye, trying to convey the seriousness of what she was saying. "It's going to take time for you to process the new memories."

"Yeah, it's a little weird when I run into something new and have information I didn't realize I had tell me what's the what." Xander said.

"Same here." Jono commented.

"Well than, it's even more urgent that you get these new memories processed and integrated as soon as possible." Janna said. "Normally that would take weeks at a minimum. What I would like to do with your permission is cast a spell I've found to help you process them faster."

"Yes please." Jonothan eagerly volunteered.

With a look of trepidation Xander said, "I don't know Ms. C, me and the mojo don't exactly go together like sponge cake and ooey-gooey creamy goodness."

"Trust me Xander, it'll help." She urged her student.

With a heavy sigh and a look of resignation he said, "Okay. So when are we doing this and how long will it take cuz I've got to meet up with Willow and Deadboy at nightfall and the last thing I want is to space out during a fight."

"Dead Boy?" Jono asked.

"Dawn can fill you in." Xander answered before turning back to the pretty teacher and waiting for her answer.

"The spell will take about 15 minutes, and Dawn you can either stay and go."

"Do Xander first since he's got somewhere to be and I'll go next." Jonothan said.

"I've got to get home, I'll let mom know I'm staying late tomorrow so Jono can help me with my Algebra and I'll answer his questions about Sunnydale." Dawn said.

"That'll work." The shorter man said to the Slayer's little sister.

"Alright then. Let's get started." The pretty Gypsy said as Dawn left the computer lab.

Pulling some mystical knick knacks from a cupboard at the back of the classroom, Janna began to cast a spell from her personal grimoire, the text containing the spells a witch knows. It was an old spell of her clan created when her clan were body snatchers. Her ancestors would possess a person's body and with the aid of spell gain their memories. Having modified the spell to help her students, it would now drain the emotional content from the memories while simultaneously sorting and storing them for easy conscious retrieval. An hour later the spell had been affectively cast on both teens and Jonothan had left.

Once the spell had been cast, Xander felt an incredible sense of relief as he no longer had multiple voices whispering in his ear at every moment. As Xander and Janna cleaned up the evidence of the ritual Xander asked, "Did you talk to Giles last night Ms C?"

"No…my clan still hasn't responded. Which I suppose is all the answer I need." She said despondently.

"I'll fill him in on your history and you take it from there?"

"Thanks Xander."

"I'll do it right now. Go home and I'll have him call you." The young man said as he walked out of the lab.

Moving quickly through the hallways Xander walked into the library. "Hey G-man, you got a minute? I've got something we need to talk about and it's kind of private." The teen said as he looked around at a couple of students who were staying late to study.

"Certainly Xander." The British librarian responded, turning to give the teen his attention from where he was shelving books. "Follow me." He continued before heading straight for his office.

Once they had settled in to the cramped space with the door shut, the teen began. "Okay, so I found out some stuff about Ms Calendar that you need to know and she can't tell you herself."

"What? Why couldn't she tell me herself and just what do you think you were doing spying on her? " The older gentleman began in a tirade before the dark haired young man interrupted.

"Whoa! Hold up Giles. I overheard a conversation and asked her about it. She was trying to get permission to tell you this stuff and they were denying her. She's under a magically binding oath and can't discuss this subject with anyone who doesn't already know. Luckily since I overheard…Well, now I'm in the know and can inform others. Get it?" He asked sarcastically. "Now don't freak out. Jenny Calendar's real name is Janna Kalderash of Clan Kalderash. She's a member of the Gypsy clan that cursed Angelus a century ago, and she's here to ensure that the curse doesn't break. Apparently their seer sensed that the curse was weakening and sent her here to find out what was going on."

Paling rapidly, the older man pulled off his spectacles and began to polish them furiously as he processed what his young student had just told him. The woman he might be in love with was a spy, the curse that kept the leader of the Scourge of Europe from killing was vulnerable to being broken, and the Slayer could be in danger. With the hundreds of questions swirling around in his head he vaguely heard Xander say…"She'll be at home all night. I suggest you guys talk. Oh, and Giles…she really must like you if she was trying to break with her family in order to tell you this stuff." With that the young man stood and walked out of the office.

Later that night after getting a call from Willow, he met up with her and Angel in order to do some snooping around a new place called the 'Sunset Club'. Walking down an alley in the industrial district, the trio had just spotted the address that the young hacker had dug up when she said, "The only thing I could track down was this address. The Sunset Club. I still didn't find anything bad though."

"He leaves no paper trail, no records, nothing. That's pretty incriminating Willow." The vampire said.

"Yeah, I'm gonna have to vote with Dead Boy on this one."

"Could you NOT call me that?"

"I could." The teen said as he knocked on the door for the club. When an old fashioned viewport opened, Angel said "We're friends of Ford's." After getting the nod, the trio entered into the gloomy interior. Glancing around the gothically decorated room lit by candles, the walls were covered by oil paintings, with some antique furniture taking up most of the space and a door in the far wall. Walking through the second door they found themselves on a mezzanine overlooking a large circular room filled with a bar, several coffins and quite a few people dressed in gothic attire. A circular staircase leading down ran along the wall.

"Boy, we blend right in." Willow commented nervously as she looked down at the clothes her mother made her wear.

"In no way do we stick out like sore thumbs." Xander agreed glancing down at his own jeans and t-shirt.

"Look around. You guys check downstairs." Angel commanded.

"Sure thing bossy the cow." Xander responded before leading Willow down the stairs lining the outside of the room. Walking down they walked by a man standing in a coffin and wearing an elaborate movie vampire costume.

"Hi!" He greeted the trio with a wave.

Waving back and looking around Xander commented, "Are you guys noticing a theme here?"

"As in 'Vampires' Yay!?" Willow responded.

"That's the one."

A pretty blonde with pale skin and a rather revealing costume walked up behind them before commenting. "You guys are newbies. I can tell."

As Willow spun to face her she quickly defended them. "Oh, no. We come here all the time."

"Don't' be ashamed. It's cool that you're open to it. We welcome anyone who's interested in the Lonely Ones."

"The Lonely Ones?" Willow asked as Angel came down the stairs behind them.

"Vampires." Angel answered.

"Oh, we usually call them the nasty, pointy, bitey ones." Xander commented.

The blonde went on to talk about the misconceptions in popular culture about vampires and how they were special and not really monsters at all until Angel interrupted her.

"You're a fool."

Giving the vampire a dirty look she stalked off as Xander looked at Angel as if he were a moron.

"You really are a people person aren't you Dead Boy." Xander commented.

"I've seen enough. They're children making up romantic and tragic stories about vampires to comfort themselves in the dark. They don't know anything about vampires; how they live, what they are, how they dress…"

He trailed off on his unconscious rant as a young man dressed exactly like Angel came down the stairs and walked right by them. Uncomfortably clearing his throat, Angel led the two teens back up the stairs to get out of the club. As the vampire walked the two teens home they discussed various scenarios as to why the childhood best friend of the slayer would hang out with a bunch of wannabe vampires.

The next day Xander was brought up to date by Buffy during lunch about Ford faking the staking of a vamp that later came to the library and stole a book. She also told him about Drusilla, and that Angel had come clean as to what he, Willow and Xander had done last night.

"Hey, Buff. We were just trying to look out for you. If we were wrong we didn't want to worry you for nothing and if we were right you'd lose a friend and we wanted to let you down easy."

"I'm the Slayer Xander. It's my job to handle stuff like this. You could have been hurt. Don't do it again." She commanded.

Fighting back the urge to comment, Xander merely nodded and walked away. 'I have got to hurry up and get my combat training going. I wonder if Cordelia could use a sparring partner?' He thought to himself.

At the end of the school day he checked in with Ms. Calendar in the computer lab, along with Dawn, Jonothan, and Cordelia. As the sun glared in from the window the computer teacher quizzed the boys on how their night went and whether they'd had any more nightmares.

"Actually it was the best night's sleep I've had since Halloween. That and I don't have multiple thoughts every time a new subject is brought up so I can actually think straight again. It's great!" The Xander said as Jonothan nodded along with his statement.

"My head is definitely clearer. All the information is still there, but it's both easier to access and not as distracting. Before I had to really concentrate to remember anything, and now it just kind of flows…just like all my other memories. The memories are also much clearer and…I don't know how to describe it, more ordered maybe?" He finished in a questioning tone. "They're all razor sharp and crystal clear now if I think about them or try to remember something, but if I'm just doing homework, or reading or conversating they just kind of flow along with the other memories and don't distract at all."

"Well in that case I'll take care of Cordelia and hopefully that will take care of the major problems." The undercover Gypsy said.

"Good. I'm next! These memories are absolutely wrecking my social life." Cordelia whined imperiously. "I had to break up with Devon because every time he talks about his music I have flashbacks to when Amanda hung out with the Beatles and how much she would love to kick his butt for being such a musically pretentious idiot. Not to mention what this lack of beauty sleep is doing to my looks. 1,200 years of decapitations isn't good for my beauty sleep. I think I actually have wrinkles around my eyes now!"

As the boys sat in the corner and quietly discussed making some hidden blades for Xander, the beautiful teacher cast the modified memory spell on Cordelia. Once the spell was complete the four teens moved to perform a quick clean up of the ritual ingredients before moving on to other topics.

While Cordelia and Dawn talked about all the places Cordy had seen and things she'd done as Amanda, Jonothan and Xander were working on plans to acquire weapons for the fight. Jono had some ideas for inventions that he could patent and weapons he could build to help bring in some much needed cash to help with the fight. Jono also agreed to help Xander get everything in order so that he could become an emancipated minor. After about an hour the other teens left, Cordelia to do some shopping and Jono and Dawn to work on Algebra in the library.

"So? How'd it go?" Xander asked.

"Worse than I hoped and better than I had any right to expect." The teacher said with a depressed look on her face.

"What did he say?"

"He ranted about me being a spy. But then he thanked me for going against my family. He was upset when he found out about the weakness in the curse and said that he would talk to Buffy about it."

"I seriously doubt that's going to do any good. She's too hung up on the tragic romance of it all too just break up and move on." The dark haired teen commented. "But at least now we can say 'I told you so'."

"I hope your wrong Xander." Janna commented before continuing. "I would hope she's smart enough to put the lives of other people over her feelings for one boy."

"Me too." He said before continuing. "So I was going to go about this the traditional way, but since your magic was such a big help with the memories I was wondering if you had a spell that would boost my physical abilities so that I could match the slayer. Your spell has ensured that my muscle memory issues have smoothed out and I'm already in good enough shape to be able fight and win. But if I'm gonna go up against creatures with four times my strength and speed I'd like to be able to match them if I can."

"I don't know Xander; those kinds of spells are dangerous. Besides, nothing I could do would be permanent."

"Well, I just figured it couldn't hurt to ask. Relying on a hormonal teen in a life threatening let alone world threatening situation is not of the comfort making persuasion, if you know what I mean."

"Actually there might be away." Janna said in a thoughtful voice. "You were possessed by a primal spirit last year."

"A hyena alpha spirit actually…why?"

"Well a spirit like that would have granted you enhanced senses and greatly increased physical attributes."

"So what? You and Giles exorcised it."

"Well a possession like that isn't just exorcised. A totemic spirit like that is bound to a specific person for life." Janna commented. "In order to remove it we would have had to kill you. So, we didn't remove the spirit. We suppressed it."

"WHAT!?" Looking absolutely stunned Xander looked back at the beautiful teacher in shock. "You're telling me I've got that evil thing still inside me?"

"It's not evil Xander."

"You do realize that while I was possessed I acted in a VERY not good way towards Buffy right? And you want to put me under its control AGAIN? Are you nucking futs?!"

"Xander, a spirit like that has no concept of good or evil. It operates on pure instinct, YOUR instinct. Deep down you wanted to be with Buffy, and it must have thought she would be a strong mate. There is no love in the animal kingdom, that's why the females of most mammals go into heat, otherwise they couldn't propagate." Janna said while making eye contact to make sure that her student was really paying attention before continuing. "The problem was you had no idea what had happened to you and as a teenage male you weren't exactly been mister self-control. But now, with the added wisdom from your memories you should be able to control it and yourself." Janna finished.

"So what exactly are you talking about doing to me?" Xander asked wearily.

"Well if I do it right, I'd be turning you into a male slayer…kind of." Dawn answered.

"…" Looking down at his feet and then back to the beautiful brown eyes of his obviously crazy witch teacher, the young man had no idea how to respond to that statement. As her dark haired student had a minor mental meltdown the young witch began a detailed explanation of what would be necessary for the crazy scheme to work.

"Basically I create a talisman that will allow you greater self control to help combat the stronger instincts of the spirit. Now the talisman isn't meant to be a permanent solution. You'll have to gradually be weaned off of it so that you can learn to control it on your own. But it's a shortcut for the years of mental discipline you'd need otherwise." Janna said.

"So if I'm understanding you right, you want to give me some kind of necklace or something that will help me hold on to the me of me after you unleash the hyena spirit."

"Basically." Janna said with a nod.

"And you're positive that I'll be able to control it, and won't hurt anybody."

"Yes."

"When?"

"It'll take a couple of days to create the talisman so sometime next week." Janna replied.

"I trust you…so okay."

After agreeing to the witch's proposal Xander left her to continue her work as he headed to meet up with Angel and Willow. Apparently Buffy had gone to the Sunset Club to confront Ford. As the two childhood friends and the souled vampire entered the alley leading to the club entrance they spotted Buffy and a group of people exiting the building. Walking up to her Xander was just barely able to make out what Buffy said to her boyfriend as she was given a hug.

"You guys are just in time."

"Are there vampires?" Willow asked her only female friend.

"They're contained in the pit. They'll breakout eventually so we might as well leave. We can come back after they're gone."

"Come back for what?" Xander asked.

"The body." Buffy answered in a quiet voice.


End file.
